


Joy Division

by CruelKittenThesis



Category: South Park
Genre: (None of the kids die), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, But are less plot important, Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Romance, Childhood Trauma, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love at First Sight, M/M, Methamphetamine Addiction, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Slow Burn, Underage Drug Use, Underage Prostitution, descriptions of self harm, inherently dubiously consensual sex scenes, mentions and descriptions of childhood sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-04-08 09:01:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14101950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelKittenThesis/pseuds/CruelKittenThesis
Summary: After a close encounter with death, Tweek gets extremely desperate to escape from the horrible fate of drug addiction and death. This desperation leads to doing some incredibly questionable things for money, so that he can finally be free. He did not expect to reunite with his childhood crush, Craig, who, though his own presence, is throwing a wrench in all of Tweek's plans.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have never done any drugs, and while I did a lot of research before writing this, I naturally will get some things wrong. The same goes for prostitution. Please take everything with a grain of salt. Also, this fic contains a lot of possibly triggering, or upsetting content, so please use caution when reading. Special thanks go to Ruby and Lila, who let me blab my silly ideas to them, and Graham who said I should go through with writing this.

Tweek groaned, rubbing his arm, knowing a bruise was already forming, blooming into a hateful flower of purple and blue, as he walked back home from school. One of the upperclassmen, some ugly, beady eyed blond, who Tweek had never bothered to learn the name of, had yelled at him, claiming his twitching and shaking were irritating and he needed to stop. When Tweek had protested that he couldn't help it, the boy punched him in the arm, and probably would have done more, if a passing teacher had come to break up the supposed, “fight.”

 

He slowly increased his walk to a run, fearful that he'd get jumped on the way home, now that this guy was angry from being interrupted. Hell, he'd probably bring friends, and they would get carried away, hit too hard, his head would hit the ground at the wrong angle, snapping his neck, and he'd end up another accidental homicide. Tweek shivered, picturing his broken corpse flowing down the river. Knowing his parents, it'd be at least a week before they'd even notice he was gone, and then his body could be taken by alien for experimentation, or something else horrible.

 

His body began to shake again, and he wished he could blame it on the frightening thoughts or the cold, as he reached the front door. He felt like a vampire, how stories always talked about the cravings for blood left the vampires shaking and desperate, willing to do anything for another taste. Only vampires craved blood, not crystal meth. As he put his hand doorknob, he wondered which one would be worse, and then, if a vampire could be addicted to meth, and if they had to prey on addicts.

 

Tweek let out a little squeak, because if meth-addicted vampires were real, he was sure he'd be on the top of the list as an easy target. His parents wouldn't miss him, he had no close friends, and he was an addict.

 

He tugged at his blond hair as he stepped into the house, then cursed himself, because he didn't need more bald spots. The one behind his right ear, and the one above his left brow, were more than enough.

 

He kicked off his shoes, tossing them haphazardly by the door, where they fell with a clatter. He didn't bother to straighten them. He wanted to quit, he really did. He hated himself for being unable to curb an addiction, but at the same time, he had sort of given up, resigned himself to the miserable fate of a pathetic death of overdose one day.

 

“Ack!” He groaned, snapping out of another vision of death to notice that, in an attempt to not pull out his own hair, he'd scratched his arm hard enough to draw blood. He frowned, and scrabbled up the stairs to his room.

 

The entire room was littered, haphazardly, with all of his possessions: anime and robot figurines waged a miniature war with each other on most of the available desk, there were stacks of books by the bed, clothes lay tossed into various piles, old childhood toys made a home for themselves on his unmade bed, various trash was scattered around the room, empty mugs that once held tea took up the little space left on the desk, and pile of coffee cups made a tower for themselves on the window.

 

He shut the door, carefully. Tweek knew is parents weren't home, and knew the used just as badly, if not worse, than he did. After all, they'd kept him addicted since before birth. Why even have a child, if you were just going to doom them? He never knew the reason, or, just didn't want to admit it.

 

Tweek ran a hand through his messy blond hair, and walked to his dresser. Shaking, he pulled out the bottom drawer. In the right corner, there was a sock, tightly wrapping everything he needed. A small glass pipe, a pink lighter, and a zip lock bag full of deadly crystals. He'd stolen all of them, minus the lighter, from his parents. He claimed he'd broken the pipe, and his parents never weighed the bags they made him retrieve, allowing him to steal tiny quantities of it for his own use. A part of him was always fearful that one day they would catch him, throw him out on the street, because, after all, being a tweeked up mess was bad for the coffee business. There was a deeper fear, though, that coiled inside his stomach. The ultimate fear that they knew, and just did not care. That all he'd ever been to them was a corpse.

 

With trembling hands, he packed the pipe with a small quantity of the crystals, and lit the lighter, watching it all melt, like a toxic magic potion witches brew in fairy tales. He took a breath, and let the smoke flow out of him, looking almost descriptively pretty, like clouds.

 

He didn't always smoke, preferring the more muted effect of putting it in his coffee. Smoking was always so much stronger, more intense, and hit much harder and faster, like pressing your hand directly on the stove-top, as opposed to letting bath water slowly heat around your body. It had been too long since his last usage, since he'd tried, and failed, to quit again, and now everything was itching, burning, for a taste. It was the same feeling as when your arms will not stop itching, like bugs, crawling under your skin, eating you from the inside, and the only thing that scratches them is the blade of a box cutter.

 

The high hit him like a hammer, everything felt as though the sound and color, had been turned up, like the world had suddenly been thrust into high definition. For a moment, it felt almost good, his body getting the thing it felt it needed, that it had been trained into wanting from it's existence.

 

He felt awake, alive, but the slight high turned into a crash. Tweek twitched, feeling over-wound, like a toy who's key has been turned too far. He was awake, but physically exhausted, and he groaned, staring at the wall. He wondered if he should try and watch something. He'd fallen behind on every show that seemed interesting.

 

He picked up his laptop, but no show seemed interesting, so he scrolled aimlessly on random websites. He wondered if the NSA spies, who he was certain existed, had seen him smoking, and was grateful he remembered he'd covered his webcam with duct tape. Paranoia began to creep into his skull, like the bugs under his skin.

 

Murders typically happened in your own home most of all, don't they? Usually from robbery attempts gone wrong. Tweek rolled over, and patted his hand against the dirty glass of his window, which was next to his bed. It was locked, and the layer of dust indicated it hadn't been opened in years. It made him feel a little better, but not so good that it made him do anything other than bite his hands and fingers, chewing up the cuticles until they were stinging and bloody.

 

He looked out the window, and saw nothing but angry, black clouds. Tweek frowned, he wanted to see the stars. What was the point in staying up if you couldn't see the stars? Even the weather seemed to be conspiring against him.

 

He groaned, wondering if he should go to the bathroom, and cover his hands in band-aids, and possibly sleep some of his mother's sleeping to forced his drugged up, fucked up body to get the sleep it needed. He hated sleeping pills, they made him feel dead, like his body was made of concrete, whenever he did get desperate enough to use them. There was also the issue of how abusing skeeping pills leads to many other health issues. (Even if he was a meth addict, he really didn't want more health problems.)

 

Twitching, he forced himself out of bed, realizing that, right now, he did feel bad enough to force himself out of consciousness. It wasn't far from his room to the bathroom. It stood halfway between his room and his parents' room, as a strange sort of sanctuary where they both occupied the space of. In most instances, they never spoke to each other in their own home. Or more accurately, Tweek avoided his parents like the plague, and they never bothered to interact with him.

 

The bathroom light was on, the artificial yellow crawled through the crack in the door, like a carnivorous animal on the hunt, ready to strike. It was unusual for the light to on and the door open, and it made Tweek feel nervous. What if there really was an ax murderer hiding inside? Still, the threat of being cut into pieces by sharp blades was not stronger than the need to sleep.

 

Cautiously, Tweek slowly pushed open the door. It opened with a creek. To his surprise, the bottle of sleeping pills was already on the counter, turned over, and pills littered the beige surface, looking like the spilled candies left by a lazy child.

 

Tweek stepped forward, to examine the bottle, that's when he saw red streaked along edge of the marble counter. Sticky, it dripped, like syrup, down the edge of the counter. It was then that Tweek saw the body of his mother laying on the ground, a thin stream of blood flowing down her soft face. She looked almost peaceful, like she'd finally gotten a moment to sleep.

 

_Was she dead? Did someone kill her? Is this an overdose? Is she going to die?_ All the strength left Tweek's body, and he fell to his knees. _Die. She's going to die. She's going to die._

 

It wasn't until the door slammed open, hitting the wall hard enough to dent, and his father stormed in, that Tweek realized, he had been screaming. Greasy, yellow strands of hair stuck to his hands. He hadn't even noticed that he'd been tearing them out. Almost absently, from a faint place away from the shock and horror, a revelation, a thought, began to seed and sprout. The simple thought of, “I don't want to die.”

 

Outside, it began to rain.

 


	2. One More Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the song, "One More Time," which is the song playing in the chapter. I feel I must apologize, as I felt this chapter was somewhat dull, but I hope you enjoy, all the same!

The chance of survival from cardiac arrest is 10.6%, and survival with good neurological function is 8.3%. She had been drinking too much, and had a bad reaction to her sleeping pills. Her heart stopped. That is what the doctor told them. No one mentioned why she needed sleeping pills, and no one mentioned why she had been drinking.

 

She looked so peaceful, in the hospital bed. Tweek knew his mother was beautiful. Her brown hair curled around her soft face, and she was smiling. A fairy tale gone wrong, no matter if a prince kissed her, or if her own child squeezed her hand she would never wake again. A forever sleeping beauty.

 

The doctor gave them condolences, expressing as much consideration as one could for people he'd never met, when he watches people die all the time. He was not cold, but, rather, tired. He had dark hair, and was tall, but as soon as he left the room, Tweek couldn't remember a thing about his face, as if the whole thing has been washed away, like ink on wet water.

 

Everything seemed far away, like the world was encased in ice, cold and numb. His father was out of metaphors this time. He said nothing at all, as he just gazed at his wife, his eyes red and full of pain. He may have never loved his own son, but he loved his wife. Tweek remembered, when he was a young child, and he'd watch them dance in the kitchen together. Their hands clasped tightly together as they laughed, like addictions and failed business ventures, and the tiny child holding a finger painting, dripping red onto the floor, don't matter.

 

Richard placed a hand on his son's shoulder, “We have to move again.”  
  
Tweek looked down at the white floor, “We're all ways moving.”

 

His father shrugged in response, “That's just how it is when you're in a business as lucrative as the coffee business.”

 

Tweek squeezed his hands tightly together, “I'm tired of moving.” He was tired of everything.

 

“I think,” Richard lifted his hand, “It's time we went back to South Park.”

 

 

The next few weeks seemed to pass into a timeless blur, the days blended together, as the two packed up the scraps of their lives, and headed back to the cursed mountain town. Tweek had no interest in seeing anyone from there, again. Not that he didn't feel nostalgia or affection for the kids he ran through the snow with on winter days, but he didn't want to explain what he'd done in the past seven years, since he'd disappeared from their lives, like the unpopular character being written out of the hit tv show.

 

Tweek did many things during the weeks they were packing, but the one thing he did not do, was cry, and that scared him. He always cried, way more than he'd like to admit, whenever he was feeling frustrated, or anxious, or sad. But he wasn't crying over his dead mom, and what kind of horrible person cries over feeling anxious at three am, over that awful bugs under skin feeling, but not their own mom?

 

In contrast, his father did cry. Not deep, wailing screams, but quiet sobs, silent tears would roll down his face during the few moments he wasn't high. He was high even more than usual.

 

In the void his mother had left, fear was growing in her place, like a nasty weed, too think and woody, to be uprooted. Whenever he slept, he saw himself in her place, desperate enough to destroy his body further with drugs to force it into submission, force it into unconsciousness. That dangerous, Sleeping Beauty sleep, to which you can never wake, because magic kisses aren't real.

 

Occasionally he would vomit, stinking and painful, burning remains of small amounts of food forced down, after waking from whatever few hour sleep he could get. He was still using meth, but less than usual, feeling only numbness and terror around the drug. Just, not enough terror to truly stop, always breaking down before too long.

 

It wasn't long before he found himself staring out the backseat of their family car, surrounded by misshapen, haphazardly packed boxes. Their old house now sat empty, ready to be sold to someone who can't see ghosts. No one put anything in the front passenger seat, as if it was rude to the person who would never sit there again.

 

Neither Tweak spoke, the only sounds being worryingly loud hum of the engine, and the radio. “ _I'd love to touch the sky, tonight I'd love to touch the sky,”_ It hummed, as Tweek buried his face into his plaid shirt. He hate how itchy it was. He hated that his mother bought it for him. He hated thinking about her smiling, in her soft, doll-like way, and her glassy eyes half shut, as she took it out of the plastic bag. He tore at his own fingers, reopening the scabs, fresh blood staining the edges of the cursed shirt.

 

The radio continued to sing, softly, “ _So take me in your arms. And lift me like a child.”_ Tweek wanted out. He needed out. He couldn't become the corpse in the bathroom, a tragic gossip story, a ghost in a house. He didn't want to die. He couldn't die. “ _And hold me up so high. And never let me go.”_

 

To get out, he would need money. He never had money, all cafe work was unpaid. “ _Take me  
Take me in your arms tonight_ ,” The radio cut into his thoughts, and briefly, Tweek thought of his mother singing. She loved this song, though she could only remember the chorus. She'd beat egg while singing, turning them soft and fluffy. For a moment, they seemed to mix together, and he heard her sing, “ _Hold me. Hold me up so high.”_

He shook his head, and her voice was gone. The radio sang, “ _And never let me down,”_ all on it's own. Tweek was alone. He was the only one who could pull himself out of his coffin lined with deadly crystal bedding. The only way he could stay away from drugs, was to leave his family.

 

The car ran over a bump, making all it's contents rattle and slam into each other. Tweek's cheek hit the cold glass of the window, and, as if awakened by the pain and new bruise, the idea hit him, and it sucked the air out of his lungs. He knew what he would do. It was a terrifying plan, it would be painful, and dangerous, but it wasn't like he'd never done it before. He knew what to expect, and, anything was better than dying. He couldn't die. He wouldn't die.

 

The radio continued to sing, unaware of his trauma, “ _Hold me. Hold me up so high. To touch the sky.  
Just one more time.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My situation has not gotten much better, which means there may be a break between when the next chapter comes out. As always, you can reach me on twitter @ Lilithkitty or tumblr @ Sakurazuka-Subaru.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you need to, or want to, contact me, I am lilithkitty on Twitter, and Sakurazuka-Subaru on Tumblr. I must warn you that this fic may update slowly, and irregularly, as I am in an extremely stressful life situation, and currently facing homelessness. I hope I have a happier update when the next chapter comes out.


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